God, I'm so grateful to have Pat, rather than Doris, Bernard, Doc or Lola as my partner. Both shows feature alcoholics and the women, who need them. Both women are intensely isolated, though Doris [Duke] is wealthy and Lola, not. Both are deeply lonely and hungering for affection they can trust.

Both of the men should have achieved more than they've managed to. Neither wants to drink, but can't stay away from it...and both of the women still stick with them.

Bernard is gay and so that seems even more tragic to me -- that he also never really seemed to find romantic love; Doris, too, has trysts, but might have revealed that she probably had loved Bernard romantically, if it would have been requited.

Lola and Doc yearn for impossible love, too: Lola for Dutch, a guy in high school that she did not get to marry, and Doc, for the boarder, who probably reminds him of Lola when she was young.

How can love get so misbegotten?

Thank God, Pat and I do not drink excessively (I don't at all due to my otosclerosis) and we're not pining for anyone else, or other circumstances. Seeing stories like these two, I feel ultra-grateful for the love I have.